Okay, I admit, I might be a little disappointed that someone beat me to creating a major documentary film on bullying. But truthfully, there can never be too many, and my project takes a different tack than Bully, Lee Hirsch’s devastating portrait of the blind-eye teachers, school administrators, and bus drivers who don’t see the pain and torment within their walls. The film has become a hot topic in Hollywood thanks to Harvey Weinstein’s campaign to overturn its R rating…a debate that has, more clearly than ever, revealed in the MPAA the same stilted values and black-and-white thinking that allows for bullying.
Marlo Thomas writes an impassioned plea for your ticket money:
Adults may be horrified by what they see in Bully, but the kids know this world all too well. Directed by Lee Hirsch, the film captures the wrenching drama of schoolyard bullying — the hitting and harassing, the tormenting and tears, the grave suffering — in unflinching detail, as it zooms in on the daily battles waged by five bullied children, two of whom ultimately commit suicide. But sitting through the film will be worth every harrowing minute, especially to the children, whose only hope against this ever deepening crisis is the visible and vocal support of the adults in their lives.
Consider me convinced of the film’s worth.